I just received my new Walkman S618. I've owned multiple iRiver and iAudio products specifically because of the drag and drop capability. However, considering the capabilities of the Sony Walkman... I was wondering (since I'm starting from scratch)... is there a preferred or "best use" method?

I've read the discussions about people using drag n drop and not getting album cover art, as well as those who use drag n drop and embed the art in the file's ID3 tag so the album art "can be" displayed so I know thats not an issue.

I'm not against using Media Player to organize my music if but wanted to know if there was any advantage (more features) using one over the other. Also, if I end up using Media Player, can I still drag-n-drop without an adverse effects? In my other players I always put each album in its own folder as a way to manage my playlists (so to speak). Actually I don't particularly care about playlists (gasp) because I prefer to listen to entire albums. I listen to one... the move on to the next.

Create folders for your albums and put the cover art also in that folder. I have had no issues.

Thanks for the reply. Just to make sure i understand. I should forget about Media Player... and just create folders for each of my albums. Cool... (thats the way I'm use to doing it)

In the past I've been using AudioGrabber and/or CDex to rip my CD's to MP'3... however, in regards to the Sony Walkman (and the somewhat tricky manipulation of the id3 tags...) I was wondering if there a particular ripper that works best (i.e., simplifies capturing the album art)

For the MOST accurate and perfect rips, use EAC. It's slower but you'll sure appreciate it when you never have to deal with pops or glitches in your music. It can rip straight to mp3 with the LAME encoder (I use the --alt standard preset or the equivalent -V2 --vbr-new) and get basically what sounds to me like CD quality compression.

For tagging I use mp3tag. It works awesome. I just select the folder that has the songs after I rip them and then I click lookup using the Amazon database. It automatically tags and embeds the album art into the songs. Works great and Amazon has high quality album art, not the usual 150x150 crap that a lot of audiograbbers seem to find.

__________________

"Changed my mind so much I cant even trust it
My mind changed me so much I cant even trust myself"

For the MOST accurate and perfect rips, use EAC. It's slower but you'll sure appreciate it when you never have to deal with pops or glitches in your music. It can rip straight to mp3 with the LAME encoder (I use the --alt standard preset or the equivalent -V2 --vbr-new) and get basically what sounds to me like CD quality compression.

For tagging I use mp3tag. It works awesome. I just select the folder that has the songs after I rip them and then I click lookup using the Amazon database. It automatically tags and embeds the album art into the songs. Works great and Amazon has high quality album art, not the usual 150x150 crap that a lot of audiograbbers seem to find.

Thanks to Sassafras and the "second motion" from Almoxil. This is the type of advice and direction I was looking for. I knew someone had to have a view on what was the best way to approach this issue. I'll go looking to download the software as soon as I finish typing this response.

The reason for asking the initial question was... after reading multiple threads in this forum I began to realize... Moving MP3's to a Walkman was on thing... however... consistently moving them "with" cover art was going to be a different story.

With my new Walkman in hand, I decided I'd give it a try to see for myself. I tried multiple experiments:

1) Ripped six albums using Audio Grabber then moved them to my Walkman using drag and drop.
2) Ripped six albums using CDex then moved them to my Walkman using drag and drop.

NET: Both test (as suspected) ...No Cover Art!

3) Ripped six albums , once using Audio Grabber and again using CDex... on both attempts I let Windows Media Player move the MP3's to the Walkman via the Sync feature.

Again: No Cover Art

4) Ripped six albums using Windows Media Player then moved them to my Walkman using WMP Sync function.

Only two of the six albums transferred over with cover art.

Test Results: Sony really needs to address the way their software/firmware handles cover art! (Makes me wonder if any of the Sony folks have every played with an ipod.)

__________________I want to die in my sleep like my grandfather... not screaming in horror like the passengers in his car.

Have you tried MediaMonkey?? I synced lots of my albums to my brother's S616 (which is the same player, with only 4 GB capacity) using that app and album art is showing just fine (embedded into the MP3 files through MP3Tag).

The most consistent way I've found to get album art on my player is to use Windows Media Player. To get it work I've had to do the following:

- Organize my music by putting each album's music in a separate folder.
- In each album's folder save the album art as "folder.jpg"

As said above, so far this is the only way I've found to get the art to appear consistently in Windows Media Player and on my player.

Well... in addition to the other recommended options a try ...this sounds promising as well. Just need a little clarification on what you're suggesting in case I'm missing something.

I've got hundreds of CD's I've ripped over the last couple years... (Using CDex) Like you I also placed each album in its own separate folder. However if I view any of the album folders... I see 4 jpgs associated with album art. 1 Large, 2 Small, and one already labeled folder.jpg

In other words all my folders already contain a folder.jpg. Wasn't sure if I was missing something. As mentioned no matter what drag and drop technique I use to my Walkman... I do not get the album art.

__________________I want to die in my sleep like my grandfather... not screaming in horror like the passengers in his car.

Some players recognize folder.jpg or cover.jpg as the album art for an album if it sits in the folder. Some don't. The easiest way to get album art to work is to physically embed the jpg in the id3 tag. It works. All. The. Time. Using mp3tag you can accomplish this quickly and easily.

__________________

"Changed my mind so much I cant even trust it
My mind changed me so much I cant even trust myself"

I used Audiograbber in the past and now I use WMP11 to rip. I then let WMP asign the album art. On the ones I want to asign I save the art as a jpeg and put it in the folder containing the tracks. Then I make sure that WMP11 shows the art when I play the track. If not I go into the track and asign the art to it. I have had no issues with album art in the over 1000 tracks I have synced over to my walkman.

I want to thank everyone who replied to my initial question. All the suggestions and guidance proved to be very beneficial.

I spent a good eight hours (of which two or three were very frustrating)... on Sunday, playing with all the suggested tools: EAC, Win Media Player 11, Media Monkey, Magic Tagger and MP3Tag... (and a few others) Actually the reason for asking my original question was to avoid wasting a bunch of time trying to determine the easiest way to get MP3s "with album art" onto my Walkman as painless as possible. I didn't want to have to learn another software application.

I won't get into a review phase about what worked/didn't work, what I liked or didn't like. Pros and Cons etc. (I can tell you I worked the heck out of Magic Tagger and Media Monkey.) However... when the dust settled... I've decided the "easiest" way to create MP3's "with album art", with the least amount of intervention and with successful results 99.9% of the time.. was to rip the CD's with Media Player 11 and use MP3Tag for editing my MP3 collection.

While this combination was recommended both here and in other forums my aversion to Media Player kept me from seeing the light.

That said, one thing Media Monkey has going for it... it has a terrific forum and support base. You can ask a question in the forum and get an answer almost instantly. It also has a great Help Section and FAQ.

Two things came out of this exercise:

1) Based on responses here and in other forums, Drag and drop came out the clear winner as the preferred method for manipulating files over Syncing via Windows Media Player.

2) I'm now super familiar with tagging! In playing with Media Monkey I screwed up the tags on about 30 albums, then used Magic Tagger to fix the all the tags I screwed up... only to discover MagicTag only lets you edit 5 tags at a time without a paid registration, then having to redo them all over again with MP3Tag... etc etc... Whew!

NET: As others have suggested, and as I have learned through experimentation, painful mistakes and trial and error, the simplest process with perfect results (for me anyway) turned out to be:

As for EAC, it probably won't produce any more accurate rips on perfect CD's than WMP, but if you have some scratches or scuffing on your disc... You will definitely want to use EAC. It will also rip straight to lame (Use the custom command line: -V2 --vbr-new) and you'll get brilliant sounding rips from even scuffed discs.

__________________

"Changed my mind so much I cant even trust it
My mind changed me so much I cant even trust myself"

Well... in addition to the other recommended options a try ...this sounds promising as well. Just need a little clarification on what you're suggesting in case I'm missing something.

I've got hundreds of CD's I've ripped over the last couple years... (Using CDex) Like you I also placed each album in its own separate folder. However if I view any of the album folders... I see 4 jpgs associated with album art. 1 Large, 2 Small, and one already labeled folder.jpg

In other words all my folders already contain a folder.jpg. Wasn't sure if I was missing something. As mentioned no matter what drag and drop technique I use to my Walkman... I do not get the album art.

Based on what I've seen, it seems like WMP will put the "folder.jpg" in the folder for you. What I've done is delete all of the jpgs in the folder, and then insert a new "folder.jpg" into the folder. I've found this method works the best if you put the "folder.jpg" in folder yourself before adding it to your WMP Library.

I worked with album art for about a month (experimenting with WMP11, Media Manager for Walkman, MediaMonkey, MP3Tag, and drag-and-drop) before I finally came across the method I mentioned that seems to work consistently with my player (A816), as long as I take care of the album art manually. After my experience with album art, I think I will make sure my next player has an option not to show album art at all.

Based on what I've seen, it seems like WMP will put the "folder.jpg" in the folder for you. What I've done is delete all of the jpgs in the folder, and then insert a new "folder.jpg" into the folder. I've found this method works the best if you put the "folder.jpg" in folder yourself before adding it to your WMP Library.

I worked with album art for about a month (experimenting with WMP11, Media Manager for Walkman, MediaMonkey, MP3Tag, and drag-and-drop) before I finally came across the method I mentioned that seems to work consistently with my player (A816), as long as I take care of the album art manually. After my experience with album art, I think I will make sure my next player has an option not to show album art at all.

Well... I was initially doing the very same thing with the folder jpg until I discovered an easier solution using MP3tag. As I stated earlier I've finally surrendered to Media Player 11 to rip my CD's. However, I found that every once in a while either an album in the Library of Media Player 11 didn't display any album art "or" I could see the album art in Windows Media Player but the art work was missing after I drag and dropped the album to my S618.

In "either" situation I can fix the album art problem with a few mouse clicks of MP3tag.

1) Launch MP3tag
2) Navigate to the album that is not displaying the album art.
3) "RIGHT" click on the file (album) in question
4) In the drop down menu click on Extended Tags...
5) In the next window (i.e, Tags ID window) click on the icon in the upper right corner (i.e., it looks like a yellow start on a white square background) HINT: If you letyour mouse cursor hover over the icon it will will say "add cover...". Click on this icon
6) The next screen will display all the jpg image files captured during the ripping of that particular CD.
7) Click on AlbumArt_Large.jpg (this is 200x200)
8) Click Open (this will take you back to the Tags ID window)
9) Click OK
10) Done... you album art has been fixed.

If you drag and drop this album back onto your Walkman... the art work will appear. It works every time! It sounds like a lot of steps but it really only takes about 15 second to perform the entire process once you do it a few times. I now have 83 albums on my player and all the artwork displays perfectly. Now that it works, I'd be lost without it.

__________________I want to die in my sleep like my grandfather... not screaming in horror like the passengers in his car.

Well... I was initially doing the very same thing with the folder jpg until I discovered an easier solution using MP3tag. As I stated earlier I've finally surrendered to Media Player 11 to rip my CD's. However, I found that every once in a while either an album in the Library of Media Player 11 didn't display any album art "or" I could see the album art in Windows Media Player but the art work was missing after I drag and dropped the album to my S618.

In "either" situation I can fix the album art problem with a few mouse clicks of MP3tag.

1) Launch MP3tag
2) Navigate to the album that is not displaying the album art.
3) "RIGHT" click on the file (album) in question
4) In the drop down menu click on Extended Tags...
5) In the next window (i.e, Tags ID window) click on the icon in the upper right corner (i.e., it looks like a yellow start on a white square background) HINT: If you letyour mouse cursor hover over the icon it will will say "add cover...". Click on this icon
6) The next screen will display all the jpg image files captured during the ripping of that particular CD.
7) Click on AlbumArt_Large.jpg (this is 200x200)
8) Click Open (this will take you back to the Tags ID window)
9) Click OK
10) Done... you album art has been fixed.

If you drag and drop this album back onto your Walkman... the art work will appear. It works every time! It sounds like a lot of steps but it really only takes about 15 second to perform the entire process once you do it a few times. I now have 83 albums on my player and all the artwork displays perfectly. Now that it works, I'd be lost without it.

Thanks for the information, I've tried it and it seems to work. One thing I noticed that may have contributed to the problem that I've had is that when you use Windows Media Player to embed the album art into the tag it seems like it doesn't delete the old album art, it just adds the new art by embedding it into the tag.

When I checked some of the albums I was having a problem with in MP3Tag, I found that there were two different album art graphics (indicated by the forward/back button under the graphic) embedded in the tag and the old album art was the one that was displaying on my player. Once I deleted the art that I didn't want and ensured that there was only one graphic embedded in the tag (confirmed by there not being a forward/back button under the graphic) the correct album art displayed on my player.

Thanks to you and everyone who contributed to this topic. It has been a great help.

I've just recently purchased two A816's for my wife and I (her first DAP and mine as a replacement for an iRiver).

Like most people, I have been avoiding Windows Media Player for quite a long time now. I've always hated its interface when managing your music.

Elton, everything that you said said in your steps can be done with Media Monkey. I have yet to have a problem with it and I've used it with my iRiver, Sony PSP and iPod Shuffle. I personally don't think you've used Media Monkey well enough.

You can rip CD's to MP3 from Media Monkey. Also, before hand, you can have it look up the information on Amazon so that all the tag information is correct, including album art.

You can also "Syncronize" with Media Monkey, which really just drags and drops in the background for UMS devices. For specific devices like iPods and iRivers with databases, it updates them properly. Another great feature is that you can set rules based on the device and have it automatically convert audio to a compatible format or to a different bitrate, say if you rip in 320 but want them on your DAP at 192.

And obviously, you can maintain your library with Media Monkey, adding tags for previous MP3's by manually editing or by looking up the information on Amazon.

It's easy to add album art to mp3's, either a single one or multiple at once.
Manual way:
1. Highlight the files you want to edit.
2. Right click and select Properties (or just hold the Shift key and press Enter).
3. Click on the Album Art tab at the top.
4. Click the Add button on the bottom, find your image and click Open.
5. Click OK in the Properties tab to apply it.

Amazon
1. Highlight the files you want to edit (same album for example)
2. On the file menu click Tools, then Auto-tag from Amazon (or press Shift-L)
3. It should automatically search by Artist - Album Name. You can click the drop down box to look at the other results to view them and select the one you like best, or you can always do the search again using different works.
4. In the preview window, you can highlight the items that you want to update (Artist, Album, Year, Label, Track Title and Number, Cover, Comments). This is great because say on one of the results you like only the album art, well you can select just that one field and apply it. Then you can go to the other result with say the titles that you like better and apply all those without changing the album art.
5. At the bottom is the list of songs that you had previously highlighted. You can select or unselect songs to update.
6. Click the Auto-tag button to apply the changes.

Oh, and there is a portable version that you can have on a flash drive so you can mess with MP3's at work when you don't have an internet connection at home, LOL !

I'm not trying to push Media Monkey down anybody's throat, I'm just saying that it's a great piece of software that works very well, isn't bloated like iTunes and allows the user more ways to mess around than WMP.

The good thing that Windows Media Player has going for it is that it come preinstalled on every Windows PC. Making the player WMP compatible is a smart move based on that fact alone.

I've just recently purchased two A816's for my wife and I (her first DAP and mine as a replacement for an iRiver).

Elton, everything that you said said in your steps can be done with Media Monkey. I have yet to have a problem with it and I've used it with my iRiver, Sony PSP and iPod Shuffle. I personally don't think you've used Media Monkey well enough.

[snip]

I'm not trying to push Media Monkey down anybody's throat, I'm just saying that it's a great piece of software that works very well, isn't bloated like iTunes and allows the user more ways to mess around than WMP
.

Hi TrackSol, Nice reply. No argument here. In the couple hours I played with Media Monkey (before it screwed me over) I was very impressed with its capabilities. Its a really powerful tool. (Maybe to powerful?) I have yet to find another tool that will do everything as simply as MM.

That said, I threw in the towel on MM when I was viewing an album one evening and I clicked on an option in the MM toolbar and BANG... the album art, year, artist etc of the album I was viewing copied over every single album in my collection!

WTF! First... I can't imagine why the makers of MM would even program in such a function or why or when anyone would ever use it. And second, when I went to the MM forum and asked how to reverse it... I got a lot of suggestions but no answers. No resolution on how to reverse the damage. It was more or less agreed upon that my tags had been overwritten.

I may give it a try again someday on another computer where I have less at risk. Thanks for the step by step instructions, should make it easier. All I know is that after spending an entire day rebuilding all my album tags I wasn't very fond of MM.

Sure wish I didn't get burnt with it... I was really liking it.

__________________I want to die in my sleep like my grandfather... not screaming in horror like the passengers in his car.

@Elton Noway
I completely understand the sour experience you had. I also don't know why they would program that function in. It's like a self destruct button, only they don't tell you not to push it, LOL.

I'm still editing my entire library. I've managed to get to the M's (artists). I've been listening to MP3's for years now ever since WinAmp was king! But I've never had portable music players until now and I guess I'm a bit obsessive compulsive that I'd like for all the tag information to be correct for when I look at it on the player. And now with album art being displayed be default on most DAPs, I feel the need to go back and add all the covers and start from scratch again. LOL.

Well, I hope you don't get burned like that again. Good luck reediting everything.

On a side note, I was hoping my Sonys were going to come in the mail today, but unfortunately they haven't. I'm going to have to wait until Tuesday because I'm stationed overseas and it's a long weekend for us (Friday and Monday off). To bad my computer is getting packed up on Tuesday as well, so it looks like I'm going to have to copy all the music I want on my and my wife's players to my portable HDD and then sync it at work.

What's the general experience been like with these A810's? Sound quality? User interface? Any quips, gripes or complaints?

@Elton Noway
I completely understand the sour experience you had. I also don't know why they would program that function in. It's like a self destruct button, only they don't tell you not to push it, LOL.

I'm still editing my entire library. I've managed to get to the M's (artists). I've been listening to MP3's for years now ever since WinAmp was king! But I've never had portable music players until now and I guess I'm a bit obsessive compulsive that I'd like for all the tag information to be correct for when I look at it on the player. And now with album art being displayed be default on most DAPs, I feel the need to go back and add all the covers and start from scratch again. LOL.

Well, I hope you don't get burned like that again. Good luck reediting everything.

On a side note, I was hoping my Sonys were going to come in the mail today, but unfortunately they haven't. I'm going to have to wait until Tuesday because I'm stationed overseas and it's a long weekend for us (Friday and Monday off). To bad my computer is getting packed up on Tuesday as well, so it looks like I'm going to have to copy all the music I want on my and my wife's players to my portable HDD and then sync it at work.

What's the general experience been like with these A810's? Sound quality? User interface? Any quips, gripes or complaints?

Sounds like we've been down the same road. Man... WinAmp... It really whips the Llama's ass! I considered myself a WinAmp wizard. Created several skins, and downloaded all the others. It was my only player for a long time.

I've also been downloading and ripping MP'3 for at least 12 years now. Starting getting real serious with MP3s in the late 1990's. In checking my hard drive just now I see I'm currently at 158 Gigs of MP3's. Unfortunately the early MP3's are at 128 Kbps, and the collection includes a ton of music I'll probably never listen to. I was in a club at work where we would swap HDD's on the weekend and copies each others files.

I've picked up my first DAP a little over 2 years ago. Since then I've acquired a collection.. iRivers, iAudio, Sandisk... but never an iPod. Never even been tempted! I'm strickly a drag and drop, old school kinda user. Besides being tied to iTunes would make me crazy.

After several days I finally got my entire collection all tagged and back in order, all artwork, dates etc. Whew! I only wish I knew what or how I managed to clobber my collection with Media monkey so I could warn others, as well as make sure I'd never do it again.

As to my experience the A810. Just like the S610 I don't think you can beat the sound quality. Hands down the best I've MP3 player sound quality I've had yet. I'm pretty fussy about music quality and I've got no complaints. The interface is very intuitive, in fact I never even had to pick up the user manual. While the metal case of the 810 is sweet I also have found no issues at all with the plastic case of the S610 (which is the one I carry the most) because it has the FM tuner. The 810 is on my nightstand and the unit I listen to every night. I'll also admit to paying more for my earbuds than any DAP I've ever owned but have no complaints on the ones that came with the 810. I generally don't take my expensive earbuds out of the house so thats where the 810 earbuds came in really handy. (The 610 earbuds? Lets just say they never came out of the package)

I know one thing... I wouldn't have either the a 610/810 without Sonys clear caseThe cases only add 3/16 to the overall thickness but do an awesome job at protecting your investment.

__________________I want to die in my sleep like my grandfather... not screaming in horror like the passengers in his car.